The NYT, CNN and other news organizations are leading this afternoon with the story of the "terrorists" who were planning to attack Fort Dix. News tip: The Albanian crew rented the house at 2717 Eagles View Drive in Gouldsboro, 25 miles from the TL and T-T newsrooms. They also practiced shooting at State Game Lands 127 near Tobyhanna. You'd never know by visiting the TL and T-T Web sites, though.Tuesday, May 08, 2007
TL, T-T Web sites all quiet re: terror training camp in Gouldsboro
The NYT, CNN and other news organizations are leading this afternoon with the story of the "terrorists" who were planning to attack Fort Dix. News tip: The Albanian crew rented the house at 2717 Eagles View Drive in Gouldsboro, 25 miles from the TL and T-T newsrooms. They also practiced shooting at State Game Lands 127 near Tobyhanna. You'd never know by visiting the TL and T-T Web sites, though.
Here's a link to the TL site. It's been there since 11.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.timesleader.com/news/national/6_men_charged.html
Yes there it is, under national stories, waaaaaaaaaaaay below the fold on the home page. No mention of the Poconos angle, no local reporting.
ReplyDeleteNice job, guys.
LOCAL, LOCAL, LOCAL is all we hear preached by these local newspapers, yet it's pretty sad when you have to go to the major news network sites or philly.com to get news about a terror arrest right in your own back yard. It's worth mentioning, though, that WNEP had a breaking news on its Web site from this morning. Thumbs up, NEP and a horrible thumbs down TL, TT and CV
ReplyDelete2:56, that link is the wire story. We're looking for the local version, given that there is a strong local angle.
ReplyDeleteNot that this is the Pentagon Papers, but the Pocono Record is all over the story. They've been to the house, they've talked to a guy who was shooting at a range the same time the defendants were. They've got a picture of that guy with a big-ass gun. I guarantee you that producers in New York are on the road to Gouldsboro and that the dude will be on television - live - before the day is out.
It's now 4:18 p.m. Still silent on the TL and T-S sites.
If Beaupre makes a quip about it during a budget meeting, it might make it into Kelly's column next week.
ReplyDelete5:20 p.m., still no reaction on this.
It's just after 5 p.m. and both the Times-Tribune and the Times Leader have the story buried under "state news." (Scroll down, you'll eventually find it. Keep scrolling, there you go.)
ReplyDeleteCould someone wake an editor and tell him or her that breaking national news is happening in our backyard?
This is another example of how the local papers fail to recognize the importance of online news delivery. Readers shouldn't have to wait until 7 tomorrow morning to find the local take on this.
OK, maybe I'm a dolt, but truly folks, why do you think this is such a huge local story? What interests me is that the guys were caught before they could act. The fact that they trained in Monroe County really matters little to me. Sorry. I just don't get why you're all hyped about no local coverage of this. AP story is fine, as far as I'm concerned.
ReplyDeleteBig "beat notes" meeting at the Times Tribune today....we're not covering any breaking news nowadays. Ed's getting all Joan Crawford about the beat notes situation. Screw the news.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I may be a dolt, but I don't see what the big deal is.
ReplyDeleteI may be a moron, but it's only six foreign nationals training for a terror plot in the Times Tribune's home county.
I may have zero news judgment, but that's not really a local story, right?
:)
FYI, CBS Evening News just showed WNEP video of the house.
Good for them, shame on the Times Tribune.
Was Walzer named in the indictment?
ReplyDeleteWill the feds depose Walzer's daughter in the case?
ReplyDeletePhonetically, Al Kida sounds a lot like Allison Walzer which raises all kinda questions.
ReplyDeleteToby Hayna?
ReplyDeleteHas he been indicted yet?
Ed Christine is a friggin Froot Loop. I'm not surprised he'd rather go on a rant than cover the news.
ReplyDeleteTop story in the AP section on the TT site. Above the fold, on the homepage, right under the words Top AP stories. Been there all day.
ReplyDeleteHmm. Maybe you'll have to buy the paper.
ReplyDeletePerhaps someone has a juicy scoop they don't want the gaggle to gobble.
Just a thought. Stay tuned.
Hey Scoop,
ReplyDeleteWrong county
Again, 8:15, you've pointed out a wire story that repeats what's been on TV all day. What's expected is a local story milking the Gouldsboro/Tobyhanna angle for all it's worth. It's 9:30 p.m. Zip.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the Pocono Record got a plug on the NYT's news blog.
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/more-details-on-the-fort-dix-suspects/
5:53 pm -- you are a dolt. The fact these guys chose Fort Dix is secondary to the more important fact these guys were training here. Uh, do the words Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden and training camp mean anything to you? It's like saying there was never any reason for the media to cover the al queda story in afghanistan before 9/11. The LOCAL papers need to be all over this and not be so lazy as to rely on AP reporting. There are plenty of local angles here to get on.
ReplyDeleteYAY! 11 pm -- the TL has a teaser for a local angle tomorrow. They are redeemed.
ReplyDelete8:35 p.m.: Even if there's a scoop, there should be some scoop-free story online by now.
ReplyDeleteLove how the top "story" under local news on the Times site is a piece headlined "Enhanced Fujita scale" by the WYOU weather guys. The Scranton Times, kings of the kiddie table.
ReplyDeleteWell, can we officially say Rich Connor should resign and Soprano and Lee Ann should be fired after this debacle? The FUCKIN' terrorits, the ideology we've been fighting AGAINST in George Bush's insane Axis of Evil crusade, were training right here in the TL's back yard and not a prominent mention til the late evening hours, and albeit, one that insults our intelligence at that. To run the story under a "Breaking News" banner is a total disgrace. I could've sent a goddamned carrier pidgeon up there and he'd come back with a story quicker than the TL did. The fuckin' stork could've delivered the news amid all his other dropoffs tonight faster than this new-fangled TL Web site did. Soprano must've been having extra shitty reception on his satellite radio tonight and spent an inordinate amount of time trying to tune in stations on that, as opposed to doing his actual job of posting breaking news. Lee Ann was probably too busy writing blogs defending the TL Web site. And Connor was probably back in Texas, maybe admiring the supposed level of security this war in Iraq has brought us. What a trio! I just wanna know one thing....If Iseman, Walzer and Diana Kurutz were Larry, Moe and Curly, who the fuck is playing Schemp out of this bunch of quack idiots?
ReplyDeleteThe debate over the TL and TT's coverage, or lack thereof, of this story highlights an interesting question. When is a story considered local? The Pocono Record is all over this story, as it should be, because it happened in their back yard. If these guys were training in Edwardsville, yeah, the TL should be all over it, expounding on the "local" angle. But this was Monroe County, and, to a lesser extent, Lackawanna County. The TL's circulation/coverage area is almost exclusively Luzerne County. Readers in Luzerne County aren't really going to care what Joe Blow neighbor in the Poconos had to say. And exactly what would Joe Blow say? That he was "shocked" that terrorists were training next to him? No shit. Call me a dolt, but my news sense says this isn't a local story, and the AP could handle it just fine. Apparently I'm not alone because lots of people at the TL and TT agreed.
ReplyDelete11:58: True, Gouldsboro isn't in the TL's main circulation area. But this an extraordinary circumstance -- no matter how you slice readership, a group of men accused of being terrorists who plotted to kill American servicemen were training 21 miles from the TL newsroom.
ReplyDeleteDo you really think people in Wilkes-Barre heard the story on the TV today and listened intently only until they ascertained that the accused were not seen in Nanticoke, Glen Lyon or Wanamie?
As for inane comments from neighbors or guys at the bar or whoever in Tobyhanna, you don't know what you're going to get until you get someone out there. I am sure both papers will have lengthy stories tomorrow including the most minute details. As it should be. The question here is why the Web sites missed out on the story for so long.
"Big "beat notes" meeting at the Times Tribune today....we're not covering any breaking news nowadays. Ed's getting all Joan Crawford about the beat notes situation. Screw the news."
ReplyDeleteOh, God! Beat notes! One of the many, many problems with the TT newsroom is management's obsession with a tool that clearly doesn't work. They've only been trying it for, what, five, six, seven years? Why don't they put that energy into something useful like daily beat reporting?
As for comments about the training camps being outside TT coverage ... What about last year's flood when TT reporters were sent all over NEPA including, I believe, Monroe County. The TT won an award for that coverage.
Nice job by Matt Kemeny today.
ReplyDeleteGood job by Nicole as well, although that story had some editing problems ("scarey").
Crime Dog found a guy from Wilkes Barre shooting at the firing range...so let's have no more discussion about whether this is a "local story" for anybody in NEPA.
All this is still a little late, of course.
Dick Connor wrote this sentence in his Sunday column:
ReplyDelete"Stepping outside the boundaries of Luzerne County is another sign of the regional approach we are taking with our news coverage."
I guess 21 miles is too far for extensive team coverage.
The Tl had the story. What's your problem?
ReplyDeleteI keep forgetting that around here the definition of local news is something that occurs within 200 yards of a county courthouse.
ReplyDeleteProof again that there's nothing quite as small-time as small-town newspapers.
He's right. All of the local papers had good stories today. Can't you read?
ReplyDeleteFrom the Scranton newsroom, I can assure you that nobody got moving on this story until Mitchell, NEPAMedia and others on this site had been beating the drums for several hours.
ReplyDeleteThis is 2007 -- good stories the next day isn't really a recipe for success anymore.
Yes, Mitchell drove that story - that's it. C'mon, get real.
ReplyDelete'Tis an undeniable fact that Ed, Murph, Kelly and other newsmakers didn't show much interest in the Poconos-terrorist angle until mid- to late afternoon, after the networks, Pocono Record, others, had been working it for several hours.
ReplyDeleteDo you think the reporters in this newsroom, or even the TL or CV just sit around reading this site to see what we should be doing? You really are an asset to mankind.
ReplyDelete"Do you think the reporters in this newsroom, or even the TL or CV just sit around reading this site to see what we should be doing?"
ReplyDeleteYes. I've seen Ed & Murph in action and know how clueless they are if left to their own devices.
Right, Times Tribune never gets a story from TV....or from the Times Leader...or from the Internet. Never. Ever. Never happened.
ReplyDeleteEd's an asshat.
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